Economic assessment of packed bed chemical looping combustion and suitable benchmarks

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) must be deployed on a large scale if global temperature rise is to be limited to 2 °C. To facilitate such a rapid expansion, it is crucial that costs are reduced from today's levels. Energy penalty is the biggest single contributor to the cost of CCS. This work therefore presents an economic assessment of the packed bed chemical looping combustion (PBCLC) concept for near-zero emission power production with minimal energy penalty. Results showed that the PBCLC concept integrated into an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant resulted in similar CO2 avoidance costs as a supercritical pulverized coal plant with CCS: 66 €/ton (including CO2 transport and storage). Relative to an unabated IGCC plant, the CO2 avoidance cost was 34 €/ton, significantly lower than the costs of an IGCC power plant with pre-combustion CO2 capture (47 €/ton). Moderate sensitivities to uncertainties regarding the PBCLC oxygen carrier material lifetime and reactor cost were observed. The promise of the PBCLC concept therefore strongly depends on future cost reductions from IGCC power plants (e.g. through hot gas clean-up and advanced gas turbine technology). Finally, a sensitivity analysis to future policy developments showed that today's CCS technology is already cost competitive with unabated power plants under policy developments consistent with the 2 °C global temperature rise goal.